


to go for the jugular

by viscemoth



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Murder, The Hunt, Violence, idk how else 2 tag. daisy does a murder, is the hunt a character or a concept?, whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-15 07:06:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20291887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscemoth/pseuds/viscemoth
Summary: Monsters, humans, they all seem to satisfy The Hunt the same. She usually tries to go after monsters, urged by her failing sense of morality, but sometimes she slips. Or sometimes she just doesn't care. Like now.





	to go for the jugular

**Author's Note:**

> i got the paragraph from the summary & the bit about how it feels to be under the influence of the hunt stuck in my head and then the rest built itself around that  
i wrote this in one sitting in all lowercase so sorry for any mistakes i missed when going over it. also sorry for any random switches between tenses i missed and didn't fix because i apparently don't know how to Not Do That

The man cries behind Daisy as she drags him along; it is a wailing, pitiful thing, and makes disgust lurch low in her throat.

She had found him at a dive bar, a hole-in-the-wall where no one would recognize her. She had been driven there - metaphorically, not literally - by Basira urging her to go out, give herself a break. Take a night off, she said.

(Basira doesn't know that there were no nights off from the force that fueled her bloodlust. There are times where she could fool herself into believing it didn't control her life, and she often leans into that train of thought; it hurts her, not being in control.)

Nursing at a beer she had no intention of finishing while watching her surroundings, Daisy had noticed the man, a few booths away from her; he had been leering at the younger patrons, men and women alike, and had given off a distinctly sleazy feeling. Watching him seemed to spark that itch under her skin that drove her to the chase. Everyone else seemed to subconsciously avoid him, though she doubted that would deter him from whatever he had been about to do.

Whatever he had been about to do he never got to; Daisy had gone up to him, playing the drunken flirt, and had gotten him outside before twisting his arm and knocking him out and shoving him in the trunk of her car.

Monsters, humans, they all seem to satisfy The Hunt the same. She usually tries to go after monsters, urged by her failing sense of morality, but sometimes she slips. Or sometimes she just doesn't care. Like now.

This guy isn't a monster, but he might as well of been; he'd end up in prison in a few years or sooner at the rate he was going, anyways.

She drags the man to her spot out in the woods, far outside London. Only Basira knows about this place, and Basira won't come looking for her. She isn't expected back until tomorrow, and no one would be surprised if Daisy came in late after her "night off". She has as long as she pleases to take care of the unnamed man.

Daisy flings the man down in the center of the clearing, not bothering to be careful, and is resulted with a cry and a heavy _crunch_ as his arm snaps underneath him. Normally just throwing someone wouldn't be enough to break their arm unless from a long fall, but it seems she had an increased capacity to cause harm nowadays.

Quickly enough, the man starts babbling, pleading with her to let him go. He is soon silenced by a pistol shot to the leg and a low growl of "shut up" from deep within Daisy's throat. Normally she has little patience for guns (they cut the hunt short far too easily) but she has less patience for begging, and this isn't much of a hunt besides.

Still, after the initial shot, she unloads the gun and tosses both it and the ammo aside. The brief expression of relief on the man's face, albeit mixed with confusion, is quickly dashed by the pain of Daisy grounding her boot into the gunshot wound.

When under the influence of The Hunt, Daisy has noticed, everything is clear. It's like the rest of her life is lived through a haze, but once on the trail, once her prey is fleeing, once her prey is beneath her, everything clicks into focus like putting glasses on for the first time. She has a direction and a purpose under the thing that's claimed her.

She tires of his pained whimpers and the feeling of him under her shoes, itches to feel the crunch and tear of bone and flesh under her own hands. Daisy gets on her knees then, over the man. She feels no urge to make him see the wrong of his ways, to force repentance. After tonight, it won't matter.

With his leg and therefore his ability to run already taken care of, she starts with his arms, his ability to fight back. Daisy tightens her fist around his forearm and feels the bones inside grind against each other, almost hears them whine in protest, before snapping under his skin, slicing the muscle around them and feeling so much like meat in a sack. He cries out then and the stark, fresh sound of pain is worlds better than the pitiful begging whimpers of before.

She moves downward to his wrists and hands—she can remember the way he had tried to grab at her before she incapacitated him, can easily imagine him groping some unsuspecting victim. Again the creak of bone against bone before the less of a crack, this time, more of a crunch. The joint is ruined, cartilage crushed and ligaments torn. Further down, to his fingers, snapping each one like a stick so he can never touch anyone again—though, again, it won't matter here soon anyways.

Daisy repeats the process on the other side and then leans back, barely winded, to assess and plan what to do next. Thinking back, she remembers his leering gaze, following and dipping too low when it shouldn't, and considers his eyes, wet, now, and looking at her with fear held in them.

Pausing, and then deciding against it. As much as it would please her (and her—god, if you were to call it that, whatever it was), she thought it best not to make a mess tonight.

Well, then, moving on. There wasn't much else she could do, short of ripping out vital organs (and though the thought didn't disgust her as much as it maybe should, it, too, fell under the category of _messy_), so it was best time to end this.

Looming over him, Daisy places one hand on the ground next to his head, steadying herself, and one on his throat. Gentle, almost caressing the skin there, that most vulnerable place.

And then fingers digging in. Daisy's not sure what her goal was—to choke? to snap it like she had done to his arms?—but almost without her permission her fingers dig in, piercing into the muscle between thyroid and spine, the sharp of her nails, almost claws, tearing the vein there.

She feels the lifeblood seeping out over her fingers, running down his neck, bleeding out into the ground under him, above the bodies of countless others like him—

but no, he isn't a monster, at least not in the literal sense. He's human.

Was human.

Looking down at her hands, Daisy grimaces. So much for not making much of a mess, she thinks, seeing the blood that covers her hands where they had dug into his jugular. She wipes her hands down on the thighs of her pants as she gets to her feet, counting the entire outfit now as a lost cause.

Well. Time to clean this up, she supposes.

—

When Daisy sees Basira the next morning, the other woman looks at her and grins. "Looks like your night off did you well."

Daisy grins back at her and ignores the hard, heavy feeling that feels too much like guilt at the base of her gut as she agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> i love daisy sm i wanna write more about her dealing w shit post-hunt and also during-hunt but this ended up mostly being about murder with a lil bit of angst at the end. woops


End file.
